Buy New Book

It begins as a statistical oddity: a spike in children born with acute speech delays. Physically normal in every way, these children never speak and do not respond to speech; they don't learn to read, don't learn to write. As the number of cases grows to an epidemic level, theories spread. Maybe it's related to a popular antidepressant; maybe it's environmental. Or maybe these children have special skills all their own.

The Silent History unfolds in a series of brief testimonials from parents, teachers, friends, doctors, cult leaders, profiteers, and impostors (everyone except, of course, the children themselves), documenting the growth of the so-called silent community into an elusive, enigmatic force in itself—alluring to some, threatening to others. Both a bold storytelling experiment and a propulsive reading experience, Eli Horowitz, Matthew Derby, and Kevin Moffett's The Silent History is at once thrilling, timely, and timeless.

Eli Horowitz was the managing editor and then the publisher of McSweeney’s for eight years. He is the coauthor of The Clock Without a Face, a treasure-hunt mystery, and Everything You Know Is Pong, an illustrated cultural history of Ping-Pong. He was born in Virginia and lives in San Francisco. Matthew Derby is the author of Super Flat Times. He lives in Massachusetts. Kevin Moffett is the author of Permanent Visitors and Further Interpretation of Real Life Events. He lives in Claremont, California. Russell Quinn is a software developer, digital designer, and cofounder of the multinational digital agency Spoiled Milk. A native Englishman, he lives in California.